A Boy Called Nate
by wirenoose
Summary: Before Wammy's House, Near was a boy named Nate River


My personal headcanon for what Near's backstory is. I dunno.

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note**

* * *

Nate River is a little boy who lives in a little house with his mother and father and older sister. Nate River is a little boy who doesn't talk much. Nate River, little though his is, doesn't cry or fuss, not even when his sister gives him dirty looks or flicks his ears when their parents aren't around.

Nate River is very smart for his age, but he doesn't go to school. Nate River can read the books that his sister gets from the library and he can write a lot better than she can. He likes to play with toys, Nate likes toys, they are so much more colorful than words.

Nate River does not look like his family. His mother and sister have brown hair and his father is blond. His father has grey eyes and his mother and sister have brown. But Nate has white hair, fluffy like a cloud. Granted, he has his father's grey eyes but they don't look the same. Nate's look empty. His sister tells him that he's a freak, that he's adopted. She tells him that their mother found him on the doorstep. But Nate has seen his birth certificate.

It's his sister who's the bastard child.

Nate River does not like people. People are loud and abrasive and just plain stupid. His mother is smart, he knows that she teaches chemistry at a college. His father is somewhat less smart, he teaches English but he drinks on the weekend and Nate doesn't like the way he smells and acts after that. His sister is incredibly stupid in his opinion. She's only five years older but she's the loudest and the most abrasive. She whines and cries and can't sit still for much more than a minute.

To Nate, that makes her stupid.

His mother might be smart, in the academic sense at least, but she is utterly useless when it comes to Nate. She tries to make him talk, tries to make him go outside with the other children. Tries to make Nate do things that Nate thinks are stupid. She has a short temper and it's not unusual for her yell, yell at him to just be normal.

To be like his sister. To walk. To play. To talk.

Why can't you talk Nate? Why won't you crawl? I know you can. Can you do anything but sit up in your room playing with robots?

Nate's mother doesn't understand. She yells her questions and her son stares up at her, his young face utterly blank. He stares through nearly dead eyes until she screams and storms out.

Nate doesn't think that he belongs in this family.

* * *

When Nate is five, his sister takes his favorite robot and puts it out on the porch. Not to be without his favorite toy, Nate shuffles his way outside to retrieve it.

That's when his sister locks him out.

Their parents are asleep already and Nate knows that yelling won't do anything. So he sits on the porch and curls into a ball around his robot.

In the morning, his pale skin is slightly bluish and his father finds him when he steps outside to get the newspaper. Nate is driven to the hospital where he spends two days under the care of a doctor named Felicity. Felicity is very nice, probably the only person that Nate will tolerate. She doesn't ask him to speak and gives him piggy back rides up and down the halls. She talks to fill the empty silence that Nate usually enjoys but Felicity has fun stories to share. Felicity's father is a detective and she tells Nate about cases and criminals and it's all very fascinating.

When Nate has to leave, he gives his first ever hug to Felicity and she gives him a medical dictionary and a criminology book.

By the time Nate is seven, his father has developed a drinking habit and is gone most days. His mother just sticks up her nose and ignores it. His sister tells him that their father is going to get liver disease and die. Nate doesn't believe it, it takes a lot longer than that to develop such a disease.

They move a few months later to a nice neighborhood. His mother doesn't work at the college anymore but at a big company that pays her a lot more than Nate thinks is decent.

He walks a little bit now, but prefers to move as little as possible.

Nate isn't enrolled in school so his mother hires a tutor from the high school to work with him. The tutor is a nice young woman named Hannah who isn't as tolerable as Felicity but at the very least, she isn't stupid. Hannah is graduating early, she's only fifteen. She is very smart and doesn't talk as much as Nate's mother or sister.

She teaches him about math and English and science and history. Nate wants to know more about detective work and robotics and engineering. Hanna brings her brother Kenneth, he's an engineer and buys Nate what he needs to build his own robot for Christmas.

Eventually though, Hanna and Kenneth have to move and Nate is stuck with stupid people again.

His sister brings her friends over a lot and Nate can hear them making fun of him. His sister tells them that he's a freak and that she wishes he would die.

Nate doesn't know how to feel about that.

When he is eight, he is assembling a robot. His room is full of models and robots and tools, there are books of diagrams, of the human body and of airplanes. These are things that Nate likes. He doesn't let anyone into his room.

No one stupid anyways.

Nate has made a friend. His friend's name is Ethan.

Ethan talks fast, and loud, and he likes robots to. Ethan is smart, he talks about art and music and advanced mathematics. Ethan wants to be a scientist and work for NASA. Nate thinks that he can do it. After all, Ethan managed to build a functioning rocket from things Nate had in the pantry.

The rocket set half of his mother's garden on fire but it was worth the yelling.

Ethan is nice, except that he likes hugs and always hugs Nate when he has to go home. But Ethan likes to piggy back Nate around so it's not so bad.

It's a rainy night in April when there's a bout of thunder and lightning. The power goes out and his mother lights candles with his sister's help. Nate sits in the cupboard because he doesn't like thunder.

It's an irrational fear but the noise is loud enough to make him see colors where they shouldn't be and the noise makes him jump. It's like giants stomping around in the sky, or canons being fired.

He doesn't like it.

Hours after the storm has passed, he crawls out, wondering why his sister hasn't come to find him and poke fun.

The air is rich with the smell of blood. Nate knows the smell because Ethan has a bad habit of nicking his fingers on scissors. He follows the smell to the living room where he finds a man standing by his mother and sister.

Nate thinks he should feel fear but he doesn't.

He knows that what he's witnessing is a murder. He knows that his mother and sister are about to die. The man standing over them looks painfully familiar.

It's his father.

A bullet finds its way to his sister's head and Nate only blinks. Then a knife is dragged across his mother's throat and a spray of blood stain his white pajamas. His father raises a gun to his own head and collapses in a boneless heap.

The policemen find Nate River surrounded by his three family members. The boy doesn't speak and the policemen think it's because of shock. Nate River is driven to the police station where he is asked a lot of questions.

Do you know what happened? Do you understand what is going to happen now? Do you have any living relatives?

Nate River doesn't respond and continues to stare through the people that are oh so stupid.

Nate River spends a month in the foster circuit where children trip him and make fun of him. Nate River spends a month surrounded by people who make him want to vomit. Nate River is so sick of stupid people that on the day he is found by a man named Quillish Wammy, he is prepared to jump off the roof of the house he is currently staying in.

Wammy's House is a blessing and a curse.

There is a boy named Mello and his red haired friend named Matt. They are the smartest but Matt spends too much time playing video games and Mello immediately doesn't like him. But there is a nice girl named Linda who always says good morning and invites him to play. She even drew him a picture of Optimus Prime.

Nate River is left behind at the front gate and it's Near who enters Wammy's House as the new number one.


End file.
